Are the Whitby Warriors contenders or pretenders?

Playoffs will define Jr. A lacrosse team

Brad Kelly

Whitby Warriors head coach Derek Keenan will be looking for a repeat of a season ago.

To be clear, that team won the Minto Cup Canadian championship, first by surprising the Six Nations Arrows on their home floor in Game 7 of the Ontario final, and then beating the New Westminster Salmonbellies on their home floor to capture the coveted Cup.

Wouldn’t it be nice to pull that off again? But are those realistic expectations?

That’s a huge question the Warriors are going to have to answer. This year’s edition has been full of question marks, and as the regular season comes to a close, some of those questions were never really answered.

Just who are these guys? They have lost games to teams below them in the standings, suggesting they could be poised for a first-round playoff exit. But then again, they beat the top team in the league, and maybe the country, in Six Nations, so maybe they are contenders for a second straight championship.

At the start of this season, Keenan looked back on the 2013 campaign, noting that the team was building toward the playoffs.

“We got better every time we got on the floor. By the time it was done, we were a really good team. It didn’t start in April or May, it started to come together in June, July and August,” he said.

At times this season it looked like it was coming together for the Warriors. At other times, it looked like it was coming apart.

They are led by three of the best offensive players in the league in Reilly O’Connor, Austin Shanks and Ryan Keenan. But something about defence having an influence in winning a championship is used in a prominent phrase.

Teams spend all season trying to build an identity, define who they are.

Are they contenders? Are they pretenders?

Depending on what game you were at during the regular season, the answer may vary.

The playoffs will be the gauge by which this year’s edition are judged.